This TdF left me cold



Bro Deal

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Jun 26, 2006
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Maybe I am just in a bad mood and down on cycling. I did not find a lot of enjoyment in this Tour. With the G.C. being so tight, it should have been a nail biter; but I did not care much for the G.C. battle. FLandis' calling it the Cat 3 Tour de France sticks in my mind.

The successful break were nice, though.
 
Bro Deal said:
Maybe I am just in a bad mood and down on cycling. I did not find a lot of enjoyment in this Tour. With the G.C. being so tight, it should have been a nail biter; but I did not care much for the G.C. battle. FLandis' calling it the Cat 3 Tour de France sticks in my mind.

The successful break were nice, though.
Drug busts, headbutts, elbows, ***** slaps and kinky stuffed animal fetishes.....farken hell son what more do you want?
 
Bro Deal said:
Maybe I am just in a bad mood and down on cycling. I did not find a lot of enjoyment in this Tour. With the G.C. being so tight, it should have been a nail biter; but I did not care much for the G.C. battle. FLandis' calling it the Cat 3 Tour de France sticks in my mind.

The successful break were nice, though.

I think one of the problems is that whether you consider previous tours to be "doped" or not, most of the GC contenders here have been given sound kickings in previous tours by the winners of those tours, psychologically I think that can skew your perception, I do agree with your statement.
 
I found the tour to be screwed in a way since even though Contador and astana werent invited, we still had a) a doped rider + team winning b) a big doping scandal and c) a dominating team controlling the race . And on top of that we got a race that was very tight but still quite dull to watch. Btw how come we have the news of Frank Schleck working with Fuentes and all the targetted tests against the CSC and still no newspaper or newsstation connects the dots and puts pressure no bjarne riis and the team?
 
RdBiker said:
I found the tour to be screwed in a way since even though Contador and astana werent invited, we still had a) a doped rider + team winning b) a big doping scandal and c) a dominating team controlling the race . And on top of that we got a race that was very tight but still quite dull to watch. Btw how come we have the news of Frank Schleck working with Fuentes and all the targetted tests against the CSC and still no newspaper or newsstation connects the dots and puts pressure no bjarne riis and the team?
very well said.
 
Geoff Vadar said:
Drug busts, headbutts, elbows, ***** slaps and kinky stuffed animal fetishes.....farken hell son what more do you want?
It was a snoozer. The breakaways were nice. I enjoyed the Barredo finish.
 
RdBiker said:
I found the tour to be screwed in a way since even though Contador and astana werent invited, we still had a) a doped rider + team winning b) a big doping scandal and c) a dominating team controlling the race . And on top of that we got a race that was very tight but still quite dull to watch. Btw how come we have the news of Frank Schleck working with Fuentes and all the targetted tests against the CSC and still no newspaper or newsstation connects the dots and puts pressure no bjarne riis and the team?
Most sport news people like uplifting stories. After all, sports is escapism. Who wants to have reality hit them in the face when they want to escape from reality.

I don't think Damsgard is worth anything. The only people that are going to catch these guys are the french drug testers and the French police. Nobody else really wants them caught.
 
Jeff Vader said:
Most sport news people like uplifting stories. After all, sports is escapism. Who wants to have reality hit them in the face when they want to escape from reality.

I don't think Damsgard is worth anything. The only people that are going to catch these guys are the french drug testers and the French police. Nobody else really wants them caught.
Standing on the shoulders of giants is what leaves me cold...
 
Bro Deal said:
Maybe I am just in a bad mood and down on cycling. I did not find a lot of enjoyment in this Tour. With the G.C. being so tight, it should have been a nail biter; but I did not care much for the G.C. battle. FLandis' calling it the Cat 3 Tour de France sticks in my mind.

The successful break were nice, though.


This may help. Kimmage was a minder with Slipstream.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/cycling/article4407072.ece
 
whiteboytrash said:
Kimmage sums up this thread;

But not everyone was pleased. No, back in the press room, some of the muppets who had glorified the Robo-cop years were bemoaning the lack of “spectacle”. They had spent so much time with their heads up the arses of the cheats, they had forgotten:this is how it looks when it’s clean.
 
Moller said:
Kimmage sums up this thread;

But not everyone was pleased. No, back in the press room, some of the muppets who had glorified the Robo-cop years were bemoaning the lack of “spectacle”. They had spent so much time with their heads up the arses of the cheats, they had forgotten:this is how it looks when it’s clean.
I remembered how it looked clean. This was certainly better than last year with Cantador. Still, the Schleck brothers put a bad taste in my mouth. And, Cadel didn't do anything to deserve to win. Did he even attack once this year? The racing was just too conservative.
 
Moller said:
Kimmage sums up this thread;

But not everyone was pleased. No, back in the press room, some of the muppets who had glorified the Robo-cop years were bemoaning the lack of “spectacle”. They had spent so much time with their heads up the arses of the cheats, they had forgotten:this is how it looks when it’s clean.
Well then, dirty it up again. I've been saying all along, I don't watch this sport for hero worship, I watch it for entertainment. Take the needle, boys. I'm bored to death.
 
I can understand people being disappointed by the lack of flamboyant personalities this year but that said, the TdF is an amazing feat of endurance and the participants deserve our admiration for that alone.
 
matagi said:
I can understand people being disappointed by the lack of flamboyant personalities this year but that said, the TdF is an amazing feat of endurance and the participants deserve our admiration for that alone.
Agreed. I still think Cadel has to take some chances. Sastre did and he won the race.
 
I enjoyed this year because I think it gave a glimpse back to pre-EPO times. Exhausted riders, frequent change of jerseys etc.

On the other hand, I understand why some people here were left cold. I think I figured out the reason. Look at the top ten and how many stage wins they have among them:

1) Sastre (1)
2) Evans (0)
3) Kohl (0)
4) Menchov (0)
5) Vandevelde (0)
6) F. Schleck (0) (1 discounting SD wins on stage 10)
7) S. Sanchez (0)
8) Kirchen (0)
9) Valverde (1) (2 discounting Ricco on stage 6)
10) Valjavec (0)

So among them, the top 10 managed to get 2 stage wins (4 if you discount all SD riders). I haven't gone back in time to check, but this must be a low point.

If you leave the SD riders in contention (as VS does for example), and you remember that in this case Valverde's only stage win came on stage 1 with the 'weird' finish, the picture becomes really bleak. It basically shows that only one of the top 10 (Sastre) took a chance on one stage (l'Alpe d'Huez) which paid with a (decisive) stage win. That's very thin for a whole TdF. No wonder some people were left cold.
 
Cobblestones said:
I enjoyed this year because I think it gave a glimpse back to pre-EPO times. Exhausted riders, frequent change of jerseys etc.

On the other hand, I understand why some people here were left cold. I think I figured out the reason. Look at the top ten and how many stage wins they have among them:

1) Sastre (1)
2) Evans (0)
3) Kohl (0)
4) Menchov (0)
5) Vandevelde (0)
6) F. Schleck (0) (1 discounting SD wins on stage 10)
7) S. Sanchez (0)
8) Kirchen (0)
9) Valverde (1) (2 discounting Ricco on stage 6)
10) Valjavec (0)

So among them, the top 10 managed to get 2 stage wins (4 if you discount all SD riders). I haven't gone back in time to check, but this must be a low point.

If you leave the SD riders in contention (as VS does for example), and you remember that in this case Valverde's only stage win came on stage 1 with the 'weird' finish, the picture becomes really bleak. It basically shows that only one of the top 10 (Sastre) took a chance on one stage (l'Alpe d'Huez) which paid with a (decisive) stage win. That's very thin for a whole TdF. No wonder some people were left cold.
Interesting analysis. This highlights the need for time bonuses on the mountain stages. There's not much incentive to attack and risk blowing up when you can stay in contention longer just by marking the other GC contenders. Sastre went on the final climb of the final mountain stage. At that point, his hand was forced - it was do or die, so he had to risk the blowup.

If, on the other hand, there are huge time bonuses on the mountain stages, contenders are incentivized to attack even on early mountain stages.
 
To continue the analysis:

2007 is difficult to judge. Taking out Vino from the classification, we have stage wins by Evans, Contador, Kirchen and Leipheimer, all of which ended up in the top 10 (Rasmussen is kept as stage winner in this statistics).

In 2006, we have Menchov, Schleck and Sastre as stage winners among the top 10. (Landis' stage 17 win removed).

From now on it gets simple, no dramatic exclusions:

2005: Rasmussen, Vino (2), Pereiro, Armstrong
2004: Basso, Armstrong (5)
2003: Mayo, Vino, Ullrich, Sastre, Armstrong, Hamilton
2002: Armstrong (4), Botero (2)
2001: Armstrong (4)
2000: Botero, Virenque, Armstrong
1999: Armstrong (4), Escartin
1998: Ullrich (3), Pantani (2), Nardello
1997: Ullrich (2), Pantani (2), Virenque, Olano
1996: Leblanc, Riis (2), Dufaux, Ullrich
1995: Indurain (2), Zulle, Jalabert, Virenque
1994: Indurain, Leblanc, Virenque, Conti, Ugrumov (2)
1993: Indurain (2), Bryuneel, Riis, Rominger (3), Jaskula, Chiapucci
1992: Indurain (3), Chiapucci, Hampsten, Roche
1991: Indurain (2), Chiapucci, Bugno, Mottet (2)

Ok, not counting the TTTs, we have # of stage winners among the top 10

1991: 6
1992: 6
1993: 9
1994: 6
1995: 5
1996: 5
1997: 6
1998: 6
1999: 5
2000: 3
2001: 4
2002: 6
2003: 6
2004: 6
2005: 5
2006: 3
2007: 4
2008: 2

Maybe what was wrong in this tour is that the riders were riding using defensive tactics from the EPO era in a (hopefully) post-EPO time.